The
Peril Of Taking On Iran
By Stephen Kinzer
20 March, 2007
Boston
Globe
Nationalists are in power in
Iran, and they are mounting a direct challenge to the West. Some in
Washington want the United States to depose them by force.
Should it?
The Bush administration is
not the first to consider this question. The conditions it sees in Iran
today are the same ones the Eisenhower administration saw there more
than a half century ago. President Eisenhower decided to intervene.
The world is still paying for his misjudgment.
A military strike against
Iran would probably have the same result as the CIA intervention of
1953. These interventions seem successful at first. Many of them, however,
plunge target countries into tyranny or upheaval. From these whirlpools
of instability, threats emerge that undermine US national security in
unimagined ways.
There is no better example
than Iran. In the early 1950s, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh directed
the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. American and British
leaders took this as an unpardonable affront and overthrew him.
The CIA agent who staged
this coup, Kermit Roosevelt, was heartily congratulated upon his return
to Washington, and even received a medal from Eisenhower at a secret
White House ceremony. From the perspective of history, though, his coup
does not look so successful. It brought Shah Reza Pahlavi back to the
Peacock Throne. He ruled with increasing brutality for 25 years. His
repression set off the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970s. That revolution
brought to power a clique of fanatically anti-American mullahs who have
worked intensely, and sometimes very violently, to undermine US and
Western interests around the world.
The United States is now
facing a crisis with Iran over its nuclear program. This crisis would
probably never have emerged, and this religious government would probably
never have come to power, if the United States had kept its hands off
Iran in 1953. Iran might instead have become a thriving democracy in
the heart of the Muslim Middle East, with incalculable consequences
for the region.
Calls for a new American
intervention in Iran ignore lessons of the last one. Violently overthrowing
a political order in the hope that something better will emerge is a
dangerous gamble.
Iranians know this well.
In the 1970s they put aside their differences and banded together to
overthrow the shah. The basis of their unity was their shared assumption
that whatever regime came next would be an improvement. It wasn't.
From this tragic disappointment,
Iranians learned a bitter lesson: No matter how bad a regime may be,
there can always be something worse. What could be worse for the United
States than a snarling anti-American regime in Tehran that seems bent
on developing nuclear weapons? No regime at all. Decapitating the Iranian
government or throwing the country into turmoil would produce anarchy.
Militant groups would operate free of any constraints.
That would make Iran more
dangerous than it is now. If the United States attacks, Iran may become
so chaotic that we would look back almost fondly on the mullahs.
In the radically changed
security environment of the modern world, dealing with Iran and other
countries that challenge the West requires a new strategic vision. Big
powers instinctively try to keep their rivals from becoming strong.
Today, however, strong states are no longer the real enemy; weak ones
are. Strong states produce security, even if not always in ways the
West likes. Weak states produce instability that hurts everyone, especially
the United States.
Iran and the United States
are not fated to be enemies. In fact, they share important strategic
interests. No one knows what may come from direct, unconditional talks
between them. For more than a quarter-century, the United States has
refused to consider such talks.
American leaders have not
forgiven the religious regime for its anti-American acts, beginning
with its overthrow of the the shah in 1979 and the subsequent hostage
crisis. They should overcome this psychological barrier and explore
the possibility of a negotiated "grand bargain" with Iran.
The alternative may be violent
intervention. That is what the United States tried in 1953. The results
were disastrous. They would be no better this time.
Stephen Kinzer
is the author of "Overthrow:
America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq."
© 2007 Boston Globe.
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